AI (artificial intelligence / machine learning) research grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation NSF, organized with recipient, amount, and sources. Primary information on where the U.S. invests public funds in AI research. This site is not an official U.S. government website.
This page is a general organization of public information. Amounts are the obligated amount as of the check date and may change with additional obligations or revisions. For privacy, we do not handle principal investigator names.
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Notable, large AI research grants explained with key points, FAQs, and sources.
University of California-San Diego
The NSF awarded about $11M to the "National Data Platform (NDP)," which connects distributed data repositories and computing facilities across the U.S. to lower the barriers to AI-driven research, education, and workforce development. It is a core project of NAIRR (the National AI Research Resource).
Read moreUniversity of California-San Diego
NSF awarded about $10 million to the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego to deploy "Expanse 2," a next-generation supercomputer. With the latest processors and accelerators and a high-speed Ethernet network, it is offered as a national resource that brings data-intensive computing to a broad base of researchers — the "long tail" of science and AI.
Read moreCarnegie Mellon University
The NSF awarded about $10M to "Bridges-3," a national computing platform integrating AI, data analytics, and high-performance computing (HPC). With GPU-accelerated computing and large memory, it serves the U.S. research community broadly.
Read moreUniversity of Puerto Rico Mayaguez
An NSF EPSCoR E-CORE award of ~$9 million obligated (estimated total $10M) led by the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez. Eight UPR campuses and the Ana G. Mendez system join as emerging research institutions to build an island-wide research infrastructure for AI-based sustainable STEM technologies. Pillars: energy-resilient AI systems and quantum sensing and secure communication, with 23 seed awards and computing access lifting smaller institutions. Runs July 2026 to June 2030.
Read moreUniversity of Tennessee Knoxville
The NSF awarded about $9M to turn the National Science Data Fabric (NSDF) — connecting scientists to scientific data wherever it resides (telescopes, accelerators, weather, medical imaging) — from a pilot into an operational national cyberinfrastructure service, so even resource-limited universities can join large-scale, data-driven research.
Read moreMorgridge Institute for Research, Inc.
The NSF awarded about $9M to "FabAID (Fabric for AI-Driven Science)," a national-scale data fabric that supports the lifecycle of scientific datasets. It weaves together data repositories, producers/curators, and processing capacity to give researchers the data-centric workflows that underpin AI-driven research, integrating with NSF cyberinfrastructure and NAIRR.
Read moreUniversity of California-Irvine
The NSF awarded about $9M to the "BRIDGE National Center," which broadens access to data science and AI for scientists across fields like criminology, public health, and neurobiology. Built on the open-source workflow system Texera, it lowers programming and computing barriers so researchers can share and reuse reproducible data/AI pipelines.
Read moreUniversity of California-San Diego
An award to the University of California San Diego to run the operations centre of the National AI Research Resource, obligating $7 million of an estimated $35 million.
Read moreGeorgia Tech Research Corporation
NSF awarded $5,000,000 to Georgia Tech Research Corporation for "PCL-Test Bed: The AI Materials and Manufacturing Pilot Facility Node (PCL-AIMMPF)." The estimated total is $18,150,000, running from August 2026 to July 2030. Looking across our collected data, ten of these Programmable Cloud Lab test beds all begin on the same day, with $46.1M obligated and $185.7M in estimated totals.
Read moreUniversity of Chicago
Discovering soft materials — plastics, coatings, adhesives, flexible electronics — remains slow, expensive and largely manual. This project ties more than twenty automated synthesis, processing and characterization platforms together under AI-driven workflow orchestration, creating a remotely accessible, robot-operated laboratory. It is stated to execute 100 to 300 experiments daily.
Read moreUniversity of Delaware
NSF awarded $5 million to the "NSF AI Institute for Human-AI Cooperation" at the University of Delaware. Made under NSF's flagship AI Research Institutes program, the award has an estimated total of $21.5 million and runs from July 2026 to June 2031.
Read moreJohns Hopkins University
The U.S. National Science Foundation awarded Johns Hopkins University $5 million for research binding self-driving laboratories - robotic experimentation combined with distributed AI - into a national-scale network.
Read moreUniversity of Texas at Austin
The NSF awarded about $6.5M to the "Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning (IFML)," which develops the foundational mathematical theory and algorithms behind generative AI — including efficient training of large models and accurate, robust, interpretable inference.
Read moreCornell University
The NSF awarded about $6M to the "AI Materials Institute (AI-MI)," which advances foundational AI research while accelerating the discovery of next-generation materials essential for sustainable energy, electronics, the environment, and quantum technologies. A science-ready large language model coupled with multimodal data aims to cut discovery cycles from months to days.
Read moreTexas A&M University-Kingsville
NSF awarded about $5 million to "CREST Phase II: CREATE-AI Water," a center for research, education, application and technology transfer in AI-driven agricultural water sustainability at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. The award runs five years, September 2026 to August 2031.
Read moreSan Diego State University Foundation
NSF awarded about $5 million to "PARAPET: Prototype Architecture for Research Advances using Privacy Enhancing Technologies" at the San Diego State University Foundation. Made under the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), it aims to prototype a platform that uses privacy-preserving technology to make research data usable.
Read moreUniversity of Texas at Austin
NSF awarded about $5 million to "Sagebrush - An AI Inference Resource for ACCESS, NAIRR, and the Nation" at the University of Texas at Austin. Made under the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), it provides compute for AI inference to researchers across the country.
Read moreMassachusetts Institute of Technology
The NSF awarded about $4.98M to renew IAIFI, an institute that fuses AI with fundamental physics. By building AI methods that incorporate first principles from physics, it aims to advance both physics discovery and foundational AI.
Read moreWilliam Marsh Rice University
The U.S. National Science Foundation awarded Rice University $4,977,740 for research in which AI agents coordinate robotics, simulation and automated experiments to accelerate the synthesis of next-generation semiconductor materials.
Read moreStanford University
NSF awarded about $4.96 million to "PCL-Test Bed: Building America's AI Infrastructure for Self-Driving Laboratories" at Stanford University. The estimated total is about $19.9 million, running from August 2026 to July 2030.
Read moreTrustees of Boston University
The U.S. National Science Foundation awarded Boston University $4,898,741 to build a self-driving laboratory for biology that translates plain English instructions into automated experiments.
Read moreThe Scripps Research Institute
An award establishing the chemistry node of a national network of Programmable Cloud Labs. Robotic automation, an AI model broadly trained on chemical reactivity, and an open data format are integrated into one platform accessible to vetted users nationwide. The recipient is an independent research institute, neither a university nor a company.
Read moreUniversity of Puerto Rico Mayaguez
NSF awarded about $4.83 million to "E-RISE: Center for AI-Driven Bioprocess Control for Cell Manufacturing," centered at the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez. The estimated total is about $6.5 million, running from August 2026 to July 2030.
Read moreCUNY City College
An award combining robotics, AI and autonomous experimentation to accelerate discovery of materials drawn from biological design principles. Remote cloud-lab access is to be provided to universities, national laboratories, industry and small businesses. The budget code is 47.084, covering technology, innovation and partnerships.
Read moreUniversity of Arizona
The NSF awarded about $4.6M to "MESA," a shared platform that automatically describes, organizes, and connects scientific data across fields so researchers can find and use data in minutes-to-hours instead of weeks-to-months. Metadata-enabled AI agents read each new dataset and suggest cross-disciplinary combinations.
Read moreNorthwestern University at Chicago
NSF awarded about $4.41M to Northwestern University for "NSF PCL-Test Bed: AI-Driven, Rapid, Experimental Automation Machine (DREAM) Cloud Lab for Protein Engineering," which proposes an AI-driven, rapid automated cloud laboratory for protein engineering. The estimated total is $20,000,000, running from August 2026 to July 2030.
Read moreUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
NSF awarded $4,000,000 to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for "MIP: Materials AI and Transformation through Research Infrastructure for eXtreme environments (MATRIX-MIP)." The program is Materials Innovation Platforms, with an estimated total of $24,900,000 over six years, from September 2026 to August 2032.
Read moreUniversity of Washington
NSF awarded $4,000,000 to the University of Washington for the "NSF AI Institute in Dynamic Systems." The program is AI Research Institutes, with an estimated total of $20,000,000 over five years from October 2026 to September 2031. It is a research institute for applying AI to dynamic systems — subjects whose state changes over time under physical law.
Read moreGeorgia Tech Research Corporation
NSF awarded $4,000,000 to Georgia Tech Research Corporation for the "AI Institute for Advances in Optimization." The program is AI Research Institutes, with an estimated total of $20,000,000 over five years from October 2026 to September 2031. It is a research institute on the junction of AI and optimization — the mathematics of finding the best choice under constraints.
Read moreNorth Carolina State University
An award to North Carolina State University renewing an AI institute for K-12 education, obligating about $3.97 million of an estimated $20 million.
Read moreAI-related (artificial intelligence / machine learning) research grants, largest obligated amount first. Each grant links to the official NSF page.
Source: NSF Award Search (U.S. National Science Foundation, public domain). Amounts are the obligated amount. For privacy, we do not handle principal investigator names.
